Internet giants summoned to Number 10 for anti-web porn summit

Representatives from the world's biggest internet firms will meet with Culture Secretary Maria Miller today to tackle the prevalence of child abuse images online.

The meeting is expected to be attended by representatives from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo, as well as ISPs Talk Talk, O2, BT and Sky.

The attitudes of ISPs, search engines and social media networks to halting the spread of child abuse images online has come under close scrutiny in the wake of the April Jones and Tia Sharp murder trials.

In both cases, the perpetrators were found to have trawled the internet for child abuse images, prompting calls for web firms and ISPs to do more to restrict access to such content.

The Prime Minister David Cameron led calls earlier this month for members of the technology industry to pool resources to prevent online access to child pornography.

In a statement at the time, he said: "The time for excuses and blame is over. We must all work together [because] the safety of our children is at stake and nothing matters more than that."

As reported by IT Pro yesterday, Google has announced a $7 million package of measures to help clamp down on offensive web content.

The money will be invested in organisations and technology tools that can be used to remove the child abuse images from the net.

Further to this, BT recently set out plans to send an alert to customers that attempt to access web pages listed on the Internet Watch Foundation's database of child abuse images.

This message will inform them that access to the site has been blocked, as well as the reason why.

Ahead of today's meeting, Miller referenced the recent efforts that have been made in this area, but stressed there is still more to do.

"Child abuse images are horrific and widespread public concern has made it clear that the industry must take action," she said.

"In recent days we have seen these companies rush to do more because of the pressure of an impending summit.

"Imagine how much more can be done if they seriously turn their minds to tackling the issue. Pressure will be unrelenting," she added.